


Standing at the Edge

by gemini_melia



Series: Old Habits/New Ways [1]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Angst and Feels, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 23:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6215254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemini_melia/pseuds/gemini_melia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Saul receives an unexpected call from Kim, he has to deal with the ghosts of his old life clashing with the new one he’s worked so hard to build for himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing at the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to the awesome [mightbeanasshole](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mightbeanasshole) whose work pretty much singlehandedly inspired me to jump onto this crazy train.

Saul's favorite place to park is on the fifth level of the garage across the street from Lindo’s, his favorite Mexican restaurant in Albuquerque. The girl who works the register used to be a client of his. She always gives him extra chips and lets him order booze to go - win and win. He chooses the fifth level because it's almost at the top but still covered with a ceiling and casting everything in shadow. At this time of night, they’re not likely to be interrupted by strip mall moms and gaggles of snot nosed brats.

Tonight’s been a good night. Saul is feeling a wonderful buzz that may be the result of one too many margaritas, whose empty styrofoam cups are now tucked neatly into his cup holders. But it most likely has to do with the spine-melting orgasm he just received at the skillful lips of one Jesse Pinkman. They’ve tucked themselves back in and Saul makes sure Jesse didn’t dump queso on his upholstery. To which the kid replies with a filthy fucking smirk, “That shit’s all going one place, dude.” He licks his lower lip and Saul’s cock tries to feebly protest being zipped away again.

Jesse, exhibiting his other skill for human origami, now has his awful sneakers on the dash of Saul's caddy and has somehow managed to wedge himself under Saul's arm, head on his chest and elbow only mildly digging into his side. With one hand he’s popping a few orange tic tacs into his mouth - something he’s taken to carrying around when they’re together after Saul once made an offhand comment about not liking the mint ones. Saul steals a few from him, and lets them dissolve on his tongue. Jesse’s now wiggling around again, pressing himself even closer to Saul’s side to fiddle with Saul's mother of pearl tie clip. Who would have ever guessed the kid to be a spooner? The thought makes Saul’s heart jump a bit in his chest, but he passes it off for a bout of indigestion from those damn good nachos.

"What is this whack tie dye bullshit, anyway?" Jesse mutters, pulling the clip off completely and holding it up to catch the bare light out the window. The opalescent swirls glint almost neon under the fluorescents.

Saul can't help the grunt of a laugh that bubbles up at that. The kid is unreal - has a mouth almost as unpredictable as Saul’s own and Saul finds himself reveling in the anticipation of what he’ll say next that surprises him. "Tie dye? That's mother of pearl, genius. And it's not ‘whack,’ it's classy."

Jesse grins and slides the clip back in place, if slightly missing Saul’s usual placement. “Whatever, dude,” he says with a leer, trailing his hand up Saul's chest and pulling his collar aside, no doubt eying the battlefield of fresh and healing hickeys he'd left there. "You gotta have tie dye in your wardrobe somewhere, though, right? I mean you probably got the original shit from back in the day."

"Fuck off kid, the 60s could eat you for breakfast," Saul grumbles, slapping Jesse's hand away where he's been idly poking at the sensitive bruised skin. "And besides, how old do you think I am? Wait - do _not_ answer that."

“Bet you feel like a huge fuckin perv right now,” Jesse jibes. “C’mon you can admit it. I promise I won’t tell.”

Saul just rolls his eyes, shoves down any thoughts of cradle robbing, and elbows Jesse in the side for good measure. It's a good way to distract the kid while he takes a cursory look out the window and rearview mirror. Nothing but darkness and the shivering almost-silence of Albuquerque rushing around beneath them at this time of night. Saul lets a small gust of air escape his lips, and Jesse is too keyed up like always to mistake it for anything but the sigh of relief that it is.

Because this is it for them, whatever _this_ and _it_ even are. Sneaking around, eating late night take out out of his car like teenagers. Like he doesn’t have a perfectly serviceable condo downtown - with a view a hell of a lot better than the slice of air-polluted Central Ave they’re currently hiding in. Because that is what they’re doing, right? Hiding from whatever shit’s raining down on them this week. Hiding out where the condensation of their fucking, and the smoke of their come down cigarettes keeps them in a perpetual state of unreality, breathing each other’s stale air in the confined space of the Cadillac and forgetting who they are for the briefest of interludes.

Jesse has let his eyes flutter shut and is idly biting at the end of his cigarette, probably trying to forget where he is and who he’s with. There is a sudden buzzing sound that makes them both jump and it takes Saul a moment to realize that the sharpness he’s feeling is Jesse’s hand digging into his thigh, staring at Saul like the grim reaper has come to take him away. He slowly pulls the phone from his suit jacket. It’s one of his various client numbers - not his personal line, which he keeps in his pants pocket and which has probably wedged its way into the seat beneath him by now. He pulls it out and looks at the display before shaking his head at Jesse. _Not Walt_. The kid doesn’t let go, so Saul places his hand over Jesse’s, rubbing his thumb across bony knuckles in a gesture he hopes soothes.

Saul doesn’t know the number off-hand, but it looks vaguely familiar, itching at a corner of his memory he rarely thinks about these days. He releases Jesse’s hand and sits up, easily shrugging on his lawyer voice, regardless of the fact that it’s practically the middle of the night.

"Saul Goodman," he says, holding the phone to his ear.

There’s silence for a beat, and then a familiar voice. "Jimmy?” it says, and Saul has to hold back a startled huff of air that is definitely not a gasp because Saul Goodman doesn’t fucking _gasp_. "Jimmy is that you?"

Saul swallows and sits up straighter, a rush of white noise roaring in his ears that sounds suspiciously like a tidal wave come to wash away the life he’s built. Without missing a beat, he wills a huge fake grin onto his face, but the only thing that comes out is a croaky, "Kim?"

On the other end of the line, Kim sighs in staticky relief, as if she were terrified that she'd been wrong to call and that maybe she wouldn't reach him. "Jesus, Jimmy. You're a hard man to track down, these days."

Saul regroups and tries again to sound like his usual self, forcing a chuckle. "Isn't the phrase 'A good man is hard to find'? I'm just living up to my name." He knows it's a lame joke, and the silence on the other end is accusatory. Next to him, Jesse is eyeing him curiously, having sensed the discomfort in his laugh and the clearly forced smile on his face.

Suddenly the enclosed space of the caddy and Jesse’s eyes on him are too much. Saul grimaces softly at Jesse and holds up a finger to say _just a minute_ before hauling himself out the driver's side door to stand.

"So, what can I do for you, Kim?" Saul asks, and with a gust of dry Albuquerque air snaking through the garage, suddenly he’s not Saul, at least not for the moment. For the moment, he’s barely holding back the floodgate of other questions ricocheting around his head like pinballs. For the moment he is Jimmy, who has lots of questions for his old flame, Kim. But Saul doesn’t want to deal with Jimmy’s questions because they don’t matter. "Jesus, I mean I don't hear from you in, what - how long’s it been now?"

"It's Chuck," she says, down to brass tacks like always, words clipped like she's also holding something back, probably the desire to slug him through the phone. "He-he's gone, Jimmy."

Saul is surprised at the renewed wash of numbness that cascades over his shoulders, licks down his back, and pools around his feet. He couldn't move if he wanted to. But this feeling is different from hearing Kim’s voice in his ear. This is like the hair-raising prickle of a ghost at the back of your neck. "Dead. You mean dead, right?" He resists the urge to look over his shoulder around the darkened parking garage. He does that enough for people who are alive and dangerous.

"Right." There's more silence on the other end, but this time it's not so oppressive, slightly warmer, Saul thinks, and it takes him a beat too long to realize what he’s hearing is pity. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. I know you hadn't seen each other since, well..."

“Yeah," he says, empty words just to stop her there. He refuses to let his mind wander back to that last time, the last of the many last times they’d had. Now is not the time. He clears his throat, strangely lost for words. "So..." Saul sighs and suddenly he feels old and stretched in a way that spending his days with meth peddlers has never managed to do. No, this is the stretch of a collar at his neck, one he’d put on in 2002, and whose leash he’s only now realizing never came off, and suddenly it’s snapping him back like a good fucking mutt, dragging him back to where he started. It feels impossible to be straddling these two lives after he’s spent so many years disentangling himself.

"Um, arrangements are being made,” Kim tells him. “I can let you know..." She trails off again, and Saul can't help the sudden sense of hopeless rage that he feels. It makes him want to hit something, to yell at the sky.

"Let me give you my personal line," he says and tells her the number, numb enough to ignore the blinking warning light in his periphery that tells him giving Kim Wexler an easier way to track him down is a stupid fucking move. They make plans to talk again in the morning and Saul hangs up, letting the phone dangle at his side. He catches a glimpse of a bright star - maybe even the North star - out the side of the garage, barely visible among all the light pollution. It flickers strangely in the sky and Saul wonders if the universe is mocking him.

* * *

When he gets back in the car, Jesse is idly fiddling with his phone, and Saul’s struck by the kid’s ability to look bored and anxious at the same time. He raises a single eyebrow at Saul, a _Well?_ hanging in the air between them.

Saul ignores him, starting the car without a word. His brain is emitting the low hum of an off-air signal you only ever really see and hear when shit hits the fan in alien movies or zombie movies or natural disaster movies. Saul’s not sure which he’d prefer – aliens, zombies, a huge fucking earthquake – anything to knock the ghost of his brother out of his head while he’s sharing space with Jesse Pinkman. The cognitive dissonance is enough to make his skin crawl, and only after Jesse practically snaps his fingers an inch from his face with a loud “Dude? Where the fuck are we going?” does Saul realize he’s been driving on autopilot and they’re three blocks from the turn onto his street and the high rise of his condo.

Saul blinks, and only when he’s slowed to stop at a light does he glance at Jesse, who’s sitting there, tense and expectant, like he’s ready for a fight or to be dumped on the side of the road like trash. And it makes no sense, but that look, that expectation just floors him, flooding him with nothing but Chuck’s accusatory tones, his deafening air of disappointment at everything Jimmy never was.

He’s struck by an impotent rage that only Chuck could ever cause, and all he can manage is a weak, “Sorry, kid,” before he makes a U-turn on the deserted stretch of sleeping Uptown, back in the direction of Jesse’s place.

Jesse backs down after that, and simply sits back, looking out the window and only occasionally sneaking glances Saul’s way when he thinks Saul won’t see. Only when they’re pulled up outside Jesse’s door, and there’s nothing else to do but get out, does he actually say anything.

“Saul,” he says quietly, but with a force that makes Saul man the fuck up and meet his eye. “What is up with you, dude?” Jesse doesn’t look expectant or accusatory now, not with the light from the street lamp outside casting soft shadows across his face. Now he just looks like Jesse, who makes fun of his fashion and still manages to steal nachos from Saul’s hands without a single drop landing on his clothes. Jesse, who spends enough time with him to know when he’s being evasive or lying to his face. So Saul doesn’t.

“My brother died,” he tells him, and it feels real, like an exorcism in its own right, just sending that truth out into the night air. Jesse’s face crumples slightly into a thoughtful little  frown, and Saul wonders if he’s thinking about his own brother, as estranged from Jesse as he and Chuck had been in the end.

“I’m sorry, man,” Jesse says, not looking at him, but suddenly he’s slid closer, leaning across the console and tugging at Saul’s lapel, fingers lingering on the fabric in what someone else might call a caress. Saul idly wonders what either of them would do when encountered with a real form of affection that normal people use, like a hug. He’s surprised to find the idea not completely repulsive, and that sends his head into a direction he’s not quite ready to think about. Jesse bumps a fist softly into his shoulder and makes to climb out of the car. He doesn’t say _goodbye_ or _see you around_ or anything, and when he closes the door he just looks in at Saul through the window, pulling a cigarette from his pack and lighting it before turning toward the dark house.

Saul pulls away, eyes scratchy and knowing he’d regret a sleeping pill in the morning, and instead fantasizes about the amount espresso he plans to drink tomorrow to make it through the day.

* * *

Like a bad wedding guest, Saul skips the funeral service. Some may say it’s his Catholic guilt, but really it’s selfishness, pure and simple. And he’s never been one for funerals. He’d dug up a staid black suit, white shirt, and the dullest tie he owned, all tucked sadly in the back of his wardrobe from the last time he’d chosen to say goodbye to someone.

It’s not a thought he lingers on, and when he arrives he slinks into the reception incognito, skirting the walls and taking in his surroundings, idly twisting the pinky ring he hasn’t removed in as long as he can remember. The place is high class - a private room in an upscale restaurant, dark wide wood, high ceilings, understated, smooth as silk, and so like Chuck that Saul wants to kick something hard enough to leave a mark. Of course, the joke’s on Chuck, the sanctimonious prick, because at least Saul wasn’t a coward, hiding in his home from the world at large. Saul learned the hard way how to hide in plain sight, behind the loudest suits and the smoothest tongue. People don’t see you when you’re burning that bright, when you’re blinding them.

At the back of the room, by the bar, Howard Hamlin is speaking to a gathered crowd, no doubt extolling the virtues of the late Charles McGill, Esquire, in the same pinstriped suit, with the same bad dye job, because some things just never fucking change. It’s all enough for Saul to itch for a scotch, or at least a cigarette.

The glint of the sun dipping low in the evening sky catches his eye, and through the sliding glass doors of their private balcony he sees a lone figure smoking.

* * *

Seeing Kim Wexler standing in the twilight smoking a cigarette makes Saul feel… something. And that’s enough for him to pause and wonder if going out there, talking to her without static and miles between them, isn’t the worst idea he’s ever had. He can come to his brother’s funeral, skip the service, and not feel a drop of remorse, but seeing Kim is a different story.

She looks thinner than the last time he saw her, but not quite so tired, and when she turns around and lets a practiced, casual smile slide across her face, he pretends he can’t tell that she spent five minutes practicing it in the ladies room before coming out where she might see him.

He can do one better, and he grins a big Saul Goodman grin, which he’s been practicing for years. “You cleaning the floor with these douchebags yet?”

And there it is, that rare moment when a fake smile turns genuine, and Saul counts it as a win, even though he sure as hell didn’t come here looking for a win.

“Thought you were a no show for a minute there, Jimmy,” she says, and Saul ignores the spike of annoyance in his chest at the fact that she keeps calling him _Jimmy_. Instead he orders a scotch, neat, from a passing waiter. For the moment, for the briefest increment of time he’ll spend standing here drinking his drink with Kim Wexler, he can be who she wants him to be.

“I know it’s crass to mention it here,” Kim says quietly, glancing around and sidling up closer to him once she realizes the coast is clear. “But I’m set to make partner now.” She doesn’t say the words _now that Chuck’s gone_ , like it’s their shared secret. And suddenly, being Jimmy for the moment doesn’t feel so bad.

“Look at you, kid - I knew you had it in you,” he says quietly, an earnestness flooding him that is all Jimmy’s, something Saul doesn’t get to express often. Too dangerous, too easy for him to get his heart broken, he thinks, and idly wonders what Jesse’s up to today. Probably on a cook with Walt, down in that laundry room from hell. At least it’s safe - safer than that fucking RV.

Kim’s catching him up on the key bullet points of her life as an almost-partner at HHM when his phone buzzes once, breaking the easy conversation that almost feels natural, and Saul pulls it out of his pocket. _Speak of the fucking devil._ An image of Jesse greets him - staring into the camera with a sly smirk on his face. Not on a cook, then, and Saul is embarrassed by the relief he feels, mixed with a tug in his gut that he recognizes as possessiveness. Saul blinks, files that thought away for a time when he’s had more to drink, and looks back at the photo. Because that can’t be right. Behind Jesse is a grocery cart, and it’s filled with boxes of orange tic tacs. Like a fucking half dozen bulk boxes of the shit. And it’s followed by a text that says, “Office expenses, yo!” Saul catches a snort before it can turn into a full laugh, because _Jesus, that fucking kid can’t do a damn thing by halves._ It makes Saul feel like the sun.

Kim bumps his shoulder, and suddenly Saul remembers who he’s with and who he’s supposed to be. She’s grinning as she asks, “So, who is she?"

Saul looks at her, suppresses the desire to look around, and then realizes he’s been a fucking moron. This is what happens when he lets Jimmy and his earnestness come out. The warmth he’d felt begins to ebb, leaving him with the urge to scramble for a cover story. Kim never was one to let him off the hook, especially once she’d gotten him on it so easily. Never let your fucking guard down, Goodman.

“I know that look,” she wheedles. “C’mon, I told you all about Ryan.” Ah, yes, Ryan the architect, the new Mr. Kim Wexler, whose name she’d slipped smoothly into the conversation about her imminent promotion. It left an old bitter taste in the back of Saul’s mouth, a familiar feeling, almost nostalgic if he was feeling self-deprecating, and when was he not, really? “What’s her name, Jimmy?"

Saul eyes her, weighing his options. The thing he always loved about Kim is that she never hid anything from him. She always called it like she saw it, even if it meant a cutting blow to Jimmy’s ego, or eventually to cutting ties completely. Saul thought that, whatever it was she must think of him now, this caricature of his former self, she couldn’t think much worse. Maybe she’s hiding her feelings from the stranger he’s become. Or maybe she’s simply asking her old pal Jimmy who he’s sleeping with these days. And Jimmy is a chump, a fucking pushover who lets Kim stomp on his heart, but only when he throws it on the ground and cons her into stepping on it.  

“You know me, self-destructive to the end,” he says, downing a mouthful of the scotch he’s been nursing - a better brand than he usually keeps in his office - before taking the metaphorical plunge. "Jesse.” And Saul knows its evasive, dodgy as ever, but fuck Jimmy and his earnestness. Saul needs to protect this - whatever this strange fucking fragile thing it is they have. This thing that apparently now includes bulk buying candy and giving Francesca one more reason to walk out. He realizes then how infrequently Jesse’s name has actually crossed his lips. It’s usually _kid_ when they’re arguing, _oh fuck yes_ when they’re fucking, or simply _Pinkman_ when they’re in public. He likes the feel of _Jesse_ on his tongue.

Kim looks suspicious for a beat, before whipping out her hand and snatching his phone. She’s quick, but he’s been guarding his cell phones for long enough to keep his grip on it tight. She looks at him, a challenge clear in her eye, and Saul knows that he can’t toe the party line on this with her. It’s not like she’d spread gossip about him - funerals aside, spending any sort of time with him is career suicide for her, and they both fucking know it. She tugs sharply and Saul folds, letting it slip from his grasp.

She squints down at the phone, looking like she missed a step. “A guy?” she asks, and Saul just watches her, practically hearing the gears turning. “Are you serious? Since when, Jimmy?” She’s looking at his text like she’s never seen a phone send a picture before, and Saul realizes he’s starting to chafe in his Jimmy suit, doing these stupid fucking Jimmy things.

“He’s cute,” is all she says for a beat and Saul blinks. _Is that really it?_

And then with a frown she adds, “Wait, are you running him?"

“Your words wound me,” Saul quips deadpan with a single brow raised, but the sentiment cuts deeper. Because at the end of the day, she calls it like she sees it - and he really will always be a two-bit con to her. He’s not running Jesse, though. Running Jesse would be like kicking a puppy after you’ve stood in line watching it get kicked all day. The thought makes him sick and anxious for more reasons than he can quite comprehend and that sets his teeth on edge. “My only crime, your Honor, is robbing the cradle.” Because if he’s going to be accused of anything, then it might as well be fucking true.

That pulls a chuckle from Kim. “Ain’t that the truth,” she says, and there’s a small, familiar glint in her eye that tempts Saul to pluck the cigarette from her hand and take a drag for old time’s sake. But he restrains himself, bouncing softly on the balls of his feet and finishing his drink. He looks outside, past the scrub and rocks, to where the sun is setting over the horizon and wonders how many boxes of orange tic tacs he’ll have to explain away to Francesca in the morning. He finds himself smiling idly again at the way Jesse Pinkman has wormed his way into his life in a way that feels far less complicated than it actually is.

“I should get outta here,” he says, looking at his watch for something to do, and not sure how to say goodbye to Kim.

But he doesn’t have to figure that out because she’s tugging him in for a slightly awkward hug, which feels less awkward when her hand lingers on his arm for a moment and squeezes. He’s reminded of Jesse and his hands on his suit a few nights back, and wishes he knew what an awkward hug from him felt like.

“I’m glad to see you’re happy, Jimmy,” Kim says, and Saul wonders what she’s seeing. How did this small granule of contentedness manage to cover up the creeping paranoia that itches at his shoulder blades at odd times, and the constant weight of the state of Walter White’s sanity, which could snap at any moment and be anything but good news for Saul or Jesse. Whatever it is that she sees, he also realizes that, despite the years of shit shoveling at HHM, she also looks happy.

“You too,” he says, and his uncharacteristic quiet is starting to wear on him, too, and it’s not something he can quite blame on Jimmy. He knows it’s dangerous to linger like this, easing back into the sound of Kim calling him Jimmy again.

He tells Kim to be less of a stranger, though they both know that won’t happen, and wishes her luck at HHM before heading back toward his Cadillac, where he lets a slow smirk cover his face, mentally shedding Jimmy McGill with the relief of a breath held too long. He replaces him with the comfort of his Saul Goodman armor again before picking up his phone to call Jesse.

“Francesca’s gonna put up a hell of a fight when you try to pawn those damned tic tacs off as ‘office supplies’ you know. She’s almost as bad as the IRS."

On the other end Jesse chuckles quietly. The sound is like water in the desert, a relief Saul didn’t know how much he needed. “Whatever, dude. They’re for you, anyway. Besides, I know she secretly digs me."

“No doubt,” Saul tells him dryly, picturing the unimpressed look on Fran’s face when she finds them and feeling stupidly pleased that Jesse bought them for _him_.

There’s a soft, sweet silence between them that closes the distance almost as if Jesse were sitting right beside him. Saul thinks back to Kim for a moment, knowing she saw more on his face than even he’s had the chance to figure out, and wondering what this edge is that he’s found himself standing at.

After a moment the silence between them shifts and he can practically hear the wheels turning in Jesse’s head. He’s about to say something when Jesse beats him to the punch and asks, “What are you doing tonight?”


End file.
